1950-1955 CBS
THE STARK CLUB
MAD #25, September 1955
w: Harvey Kurtzman
a: Jack Davis
The Stork Club was the most famous restaurant/nightclub in New York City from the 30s to the 60s, and basically all fictional works about showbiz from that time have a place based on it. It's most famous for a movie called The Stork Club in the 40s, but for a brief time there was a TV show of it.
It was hosted by owner Sherman Billingsley and featured him mingling eith the various celebrities there. The splash panel has all sorts of celebrities, I see Groucho Marx, Wally Cox, Fess Parker, Kirk Douglas, Liberace, Arthur Godfrey (drinking Lipton tea), Ed Sullivan...
Are you sure Kirk Douglas is in the splash? I see Burt Lancaster and Gary Cooper in the lower left reading Mad (referencing the previous issue's parody of Veracruz), but I haven't spotted Douglas.
ReplyDeleteI also think you may have mistaken Dave Garroway for Wally Cox. The signature hand gesture is the giveaway.
I also see Milton Berle (getting elbowed in the eye in the lower right) and Jack Webb (arresting Frankenstein for overacting?). And I think the guy carrying beer is Jackie Gleason as his Joe the Bartender character. I haven't worked out who the woman with the strong jaw is yet.